stacks
The Truth is myoptic politicians are sick with corruption. Drugs are a social control mechanism.

Social control
through chemical drugs

or how did humanity survive
without a cornucopia of pharmaceuticals?


"How does a physician subscribing to "first do no harm" find himself or herself
prescribing either drugs that are inherently harmful or drugs at hazardous levels?
The answer is not complex. "Follow the money" is all one needs to do." - Tom Pula

If the drug companies are so truthful and honest about the risks and benefit of using their drugs why do they make it impossible for medical scientists to understand the results of clinical trials? And why do they make it impossible for consumers to access those results?

"The reason for encouraging independent studies of clinical trials is that doing so can offer clues to risks and dangerous side effects that begin to show up in significant numbers only after the drug is on the market." - Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar


chemical nutrients versus natural nutrients

health care

vaccines

ecstacy

backlash

NSAIDs

zyprexa

painkillers

quality control

war on drugs

breast implants

antidepressants

weight loss pills

vytorin and zetia

insurance and drugs

pharmaceutical advertising

stimulants and antihistamines

recombinant activated factor VII

natural occuring drugs and chemical drugs

phenylpropanolamine and catastrophic stroke

indigestion, heartburn and chronically upset stomachs

carmustine, cisplatin, cytarabine and other chemotherapy drugs

neuroleptics, tranquilizers, anti-psychotics and forced psychiatric drugging

antibiotics, aprotinin, erectile dysfunction, eczema, calcium suppliments, hormone therapy

food and drug administration, national institute of health, clinical trials, experiments guinea pigs



not feeling very well today?
this exquisitely beautiful pill is the 'solution'!

believe it - the 'solution' - at long last!

feel it - your floating on clouds!

dream it - dreamtime heaven returns!

no illness can stop you now!!!

!!!!! you are invincible !!!!!

To stay in the game all you have to do
is find the appropriate chemical combination!


a drug for every side effect

Americans spent $279 billion on prescribed drugs in 2006.

There are more than 10,000 drugs for sale
in the American pharmaceutical market.

Since 1990 prescription drug sales have increased by 500%.

Pharmaceutical pushers (oops! I'm bad - I meant "salesmen"!) spend up to a $1 billion to market the next blockbuster drug.

An estimated 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used to make drugs sold in America are imported, and an estimated 40 percent of finished drugs are made in foreign countries - much of both in China.


Aspirations of being elevated to a position outside of nature, where the natural physical laws of nature can be preempted, ultimately result in disappointment. The only thing that will ever elevate living human beings physically out of nature, making then immune to nature and reality, is death.


"Sick days are typically unplanned, which results in significant burdens to corporations when individuals do not show up as expected." - Rick Chaifetz, CEO of ComPysch, (human resources)

"People are being forced to chose between being a good employee or being a good family member. That's not a choice anyone should have to make." - Linda Meric, director of 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) turned to a nonprofit front group erected by Shaw Science Partners, a public relations firm that specializes in launching new drugs ," to help the public understand direct-to-consumer drug ads with a new web site - EthicAd. EthicAd, the nonprofit behind the FDA site, is funded by Shaw Science Partners and its own board members. Shaw Group founder Michael Shaw admitted that "if not all, almost all" of EthicAd's funders "do work for industry." EthicAd shares the same physical address as Shaw Science Partners.


To understand how social control through drugs works one must understand the human ego.

Popular American behavior is ingrained by commercial messages endlessly repeated.

These commercial messages are directed at the individual, you.

American mass media endlessly brands you with product.

After all, buying this product is the solution to good health!

The greatest human failing is the support of ego through fantasy.

You fantasize, "Finally, the solution!"

You want to believe, you need to believe.

This is how you are trapped with drugs.

It does not matter if the drugs are legal or illegal - you are still trapped. Trapped how?

Trapped by your need to believe in the miraculous properties of the drug to continue to make you feel good!

No human will ever know what it is like to inhabit another humans body.

You can empathize with another's pain but you can not experience it directly.

You can not know what it feels like to be perfectly healthy just as you can not know the details of the pain another experiences. If you have never experienced acute pain then you can not know how that pain feels. And there are so many diseases and disorders to fear!

Do you feel good? Are you right with the Earth?

You say NO?!

Have I got the 'perfect' drug for YOU!

"When patients ask for a drug, they tend to get the drug regardless of whether it is appropriate for them."
- Joel Weissman, a health policy expert at Harvard Medical School.

The problem is there really are no 'perfect' drugs.


insurance and drugs

"Insurance companies are profit making corporations operating in a market economy trying to outdo their competitors." - Donald Schwartz MD

Underwriting guidelines for several individual health insurance plans list certain drugs that are likely to render the user ineligible for health insurance. The question then becomes - are the drugs in and of themselves harmful or does use of the drugs truly point to underlying conditions that frighten insurers away?

Either way it seems to be in the individuals best interest to not be using any of the listed drugs unless it is quite obvious that not using the listed drug brings on life threatening conditions.

Individuals may be refused individual health insurance coverage if they use any of the following drugs: cholesterol reducers - Lipitor, Zocor; digestive tract problems - Nexium, Prevacid, Protinix, Tagamet; asthma control - Advair, Singulair; depression control - Zoloft, Celexa, Prozac; attention deficit disorder control - Concerta, Ritalin; allergies control - Allegra; acne control - Accutane; arthritis pain control - Celebrex; herpes control - Famvir; angina control - Imdur; migraine control - Imitrex; fungal control - Lamisil; menstrual disorders - Parolodel; hyperthyroid disorder - Tapazole; epilepsy control - Topamax.

"It is an egregious mistake to think that the mission of health insurance companies is to provide healthcare for the seriously ill. Commercial insurers fulfill their legal and corporate mission by making profits for their investors, not by providing care for the expensively ill. They do this by avoiding people who are or may become seriously ill. The most successful companies do this better than their competitors. Precisely because this is and must remain the true north of commercial insurance, every other developed nation pushes commercial insurance to the margins of their systems. When we learn this basic lesson in the United States, we will have taken a giant step toward radical reform." - John W. Glaser



antidepressants

The Food and Drug Administration warned doctors, patients and their families March 22, 2004 that popular antidepressants could cause deepening depression and even suicide. Those involved with antidepressants should look out for agitation, hostility, mania and other forms of violent behavior that have been associated with antidepressants.

The link between antidepressants 'serotonin reuptake inhibitors' and violence came under scrutiny in a trial stemming from the case of Joseph Westbecker. After using Prozac Joseph Westbecker killed himself and eight others at a Louisville, Kentucky printing plant.

Survivors and relatives of the dead sued Eli Lilly, Prozac's manufacturer. The jury ruled in the Eli Lilly's favor after the plaintiffs' lawyers rested their case without presenting key evidence.

An investigation showed that Eli Lilly had given huge settlements to the plantiffs and their lawyers.

In 1997, the judge changed the official record from a jury verdict in Eli Lilly's favor to dismissal of a settled case.

"It's an example par excellence of the behind the scenes maneuvering that the corporations have done repeatedly to obscure the side effects from public view." - Doctor Joseph Glenmullen, a Havard Medical School psychiatrist.

Traci Johnson believed it was God's plan for her to leave home and attend Bible college - and she prayed every day for the Lord to provide for her tuition.

An unusual opportunity presented itself. Eli Lilly, was seeking healthy subjects for a live-in clinical drug trial. The 19 year old freshman could make $150 a day for 49 days more than a year's worth of her school expenses for taking a drug known as duloxetine, an antidepressant relative of Prozac.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Prozac in 1987 and since then sales have totaled more than $21 billion. By the late 1990s, the patent on Prozac was about to expire, and the company needed a sequel. Eli Lilly began looking at duloxetine, a patented agent that not only affects serotonin, like Prozac, but also norepinephrine, another brain chemical.

Traci Johnson was fine until three days after the final dose in the clinical drug trial. Traci Johnson's now had the resources for Bible College. Traci Johnson was also looking forward to her sister giving birth. Traci Johnson prayers to God must have seemed answered. Unfortunately a chemical imbalance, due to the duloxetine, took hold of Traci Johnson. Traci Johnson hung herself with a scarf. Traci Johnson left no suicide note.

In 2003 when concerns arose about a possible link between children taking antidepressant drugs and suicide attempts, senior officials Food and Drug Administration ordered their leading expert to head up an examination of the evidence. When the government scientist filed his report in the winter of 2003, however, his superiors decided to keep it secret. The report concluded that children who took antidepressant drugs were twice as likely to be involved in serious suicide related behavior and violent behavior as those who did not.

Rick Lohstroh's 10 year old son was prescribed Prozac at the request of his mother - Deborah Geisler, a registered nurse. Prozac was prescribed by the medical profession in an attempt to dull the intensity of the feelings the boy was experiencing due to his mother's and father's nasty divorce. Prozac instead facilitated the commission of a violent act.

On August 27th, 2004, without a warning this ten year old boy shot his father in the back, killing him in September 2004. The boy was given a 10 year prison sentence.

Prosecuters would have preferred to put Deborah on trial as they believe Parental Alienation Syndrome was a mitagating factor in Rick Lohstroh's patricide but Parental Alienation Syndrome is not yet recognized by law.

From 1987 to 1996 psychotropic drug use among children and teens nearly tripled. Visits by children ages 12 to 17 for mental health treatment increased by nearly 900,000 from 2002 to 2004.

Antidepressant drugs, Prozac, Zolott, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro, Etrexor, Wellbutrin, Serzone and Remeron are taken by over 30 million Americans. The first seven are in the drug category known as 'serotonin reuptake inhibitors,' and their sales in 2003 exceeded those of any other drug class except opiates.

If you happen to believe that American psychiatrists are just there to help you and that pharmaceutical manufactures do not sway them as far as their pronouncement of the ability of pharmaceuticals to help solve mental health issues then you have not heard of Charles B. Nemeroff, Melissa P. DelBello or Joseph Biederman.

Psychiatrist Charles B. Nemeroff, editor in chief of the influential journal Neuropsychopharmacology, earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drug makers from 2000 to 2007 and failed to report at least $1.2 million of that income. Charles B. Nemeroff was the principal investigator for a five-year $3.9 million grant financed by the National Institute of Mental Health for which GlaxoSmithKline provided drugs. From 2000 through 2006, Charles B. Nemeroff earned more than $960,000 from GlaxoSmithKline but listed earnings of less than $35,000. Charles B. Nemeroff failed to disclose conflicts of interest in trials of drugs from Merck, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson.

Psychiatrist Melissa P. DelBello claimed she earned about $100,000 from 2005 to 2007 from eight drug makers, but AstraZeneca alone paid her $238,000 during the period.

Psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, a renowned child psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, and a colleague, Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, reported earning several hundred thousand dollars each in consulting fees from pharmaceutical manufactures from 2000 to 2007, when in fact they had earned at least $1.6 million each.


A new study released in October 2008 in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that reporters for print and online media outlets failed 42 percent of the time to mention drug company funding of research cited in their "news" stories. 67 percent of "news" stories mentioned the brand names of drugs rather than their generic names, further reinforcing pharmaceutical industry marketing campaigns.


neuroleptics, tranquilizers, anti-psychotics and forced psychiatric drugging

see Dan Stadford


Zyprexa

In 1999 Eli Lilly discovered that Zyprexa, a drug Eli Lilly designed to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, caused excessive weight gain in patients leading to diabetes.

Eli Lilly encouraged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa to elderly patients with early signs of dementia.

In the first class action filed over Zyprexa Eli Lilly settled with 8000 plaintiffs for $700 million in 2005.

Eli Lilly required that all sensitive documents be sealed and the settlement remain a secret.

Eli Lilly went on to sell $4.2 billion worth of Zyprexa in 2005.

Legally the dangers of Zyprexa were secreted away so Eli Lilly could continue to sell large quantities of Zyprexa.

The responsibility of the executives running Eli Lilly is not to the consumers of it's products but to it's shareholders.

The fact that the Zyprexa could adversely effect the lives of consumer's was simply figured in as a cost of doing business.

18 months after the first settlement Eli Lilly settled with another 18,000 plaintiffs who sued over the adverse effects of Zyprexa after the first trial documents were publicized by a third party unrelated to the settlement.

Note on bipolar disorder:

In 1994 20,000 American children and adolescents were diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

In 2003 800,000 children and adolescents were diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Within 9 years children and adolescents diagnosed with bipolar disorder has risen exponentially - 40 times levels 9 years earlier.

Either bipolar disorder is increasing at an alarming rate or the standard for diagnosing bipolar disorder has gone down.

Boys that behave aggressively or exhibit irritable behavior become much more compliant when given mood stabilizers, antidepressants or antipsychotics and parents are relieved of the stigma of poor parenting as bipolar disorder is thought to be an inherited trait.


If you can not control them - try Zyprexa to control them!

"I call it the juvenile bipolar juggernaut. The diagnoses has been broadened considerably and I think that's a big problem." - Joseph Woolston, chief of child psychiatry at Yale University Hospital

The truth is this: the best drug for controlling bipolar disorder is marijuana - of course the pharmacuetical manufactures would not make hundreds of million of dollars as those with bipolar disorder could grow their own medicine in the backyard.

On September 17, 2008 a government funded study confirmed that Zyprexa, made by Eli Lilly, and Risperdal, made by Janssen were no more effective than earlier antipsychotics. Initially they were marketed as being better because they reduced side effects such as uncontrolled shaking or tremors.


painkillers = pain control

Painkillers do not kill the pain they just make pain easier to endure.

Do you have arthritic pain? The new wonder drug Vioxx is for you! Oops sorry, pulled due to risk of stroke and heart attack in September 2004. (Merck had $2.5 billion in sales from Vioxx in 2003.)

Perhaps one of the other Cox-2 inhibitors like Celebrex or Bextra is for you! Watch your national network television channel for more new wonder drug advertisements, oops I mean announcements!

A study that concluded that low doses of Vioxx increase the risk of heart attack by 50% was finally released by the Food and Drug Administration in Febuary 2005, 3 months after it was originally scheduled to be released to the medical journal Lancet. This allowed the drug companies to complete a propaganda offense stating even lower doses of Vioxx should be allowed.

David Graham of the Food and Drug Administration Office of Drug Safety stated that Vioxx has caused as many as 140,000 cases of heart disease and killed up to 56,000 people.

In December 2005 it was discovered that the clinical trial of Vioxx, conducted to gain approval by the Food and Drug Administration, conveniently neglected to mention the three individuals who suffered heart attacks during the clinical trial. The pharmaceutical industry is concerned only with the bottom line and if the facts get in way then sweep them under the rug!


OxyContin

OxyContin is oxycodone, an opioid analgesic medication synthesized from thebaine. Thebaine (paramorphine) is an opiate alkaloid. A minor constituent of opium, thebaine is chemically similar to both morphine and codeine.

In May of 2007 Purdue Pharma executives plead guilty to charges that they mislead the government about the risk of addiction to OxyContin. Purdue Pharma claimed oxycodone was less addictive and less subject to abuse than other opiates. Purdue Pharma, its president, top lawyer and former chief medical officer will pay $634.5 million in fines. In 2004, 36,000 people made emergency room visits due to oxycodone overdoses.

"From 1996 to 2001, the number of oxycodone-related deaths nationwide increased 400 percent while the annual number of OxyContin prescriptions increased nearly 20-fold, according to a report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2002, the DEA said the drug caused 146 deaths and contributed to another 318." - International Herald Tribune

Many oxycodone overdoses resulted in death which should have brought criminal charges! Exempt!

Corporate officers have no duty to be socially responsible!


NSAIDs

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, usually abbreviated to NSAIDs, are drugs with analgesic, antipyretic and anti-inflammatory effects - they reduce pain, fever and inflammation.

More than 100,000 people are hospitalized each year because of adverse reactions to NSAIDs. More than 15,000 people die, often because of compliciations caused by bleeding or perforated ulcers.

Drugs in this class include ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), diclofenac (Cataflam, Voltaren), meloxicam (Mobic), naproxen (Aleve, Naprosyn) and indomethacin (Indocin). In addition to digestive-tract damage, NSAIDs can raise blood pressure and increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes, as well as injure kidneys and the liver.


phenylpropanolamine and catastrophic stroke

Tracy Patton, at 37, suffered a catastrophic stroke.

She has a list in the bathroom so she can remember her personal hygiene process.

Tricia Newenham, at 15, suffered a stroke, spent a month in a coma and is now totally blind and profoundly mentally impaired. When reminiscing about her prom dates and nights at the movies, she dissolves into inconsolable sobbing, condemned to remember just enough of what her life was like then to understand how much less it is now.

Only hours before these devastating strokes, each victim had taken a seemingly innocuous over-the-counter cold medicine, one of millions of doses consumed annually nationwide. The medicines contained phenylpropanolamine, the active ingredient in scores of popular nonprescription decongestants and diet aids until November 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration declared phenylpropanolamine unsafe and asked drug companies to stop selling it.

By then, the drug industry had spent more than two decades fending off growing evidence of a possible link between phenylpropanolamine and hemorrhagic stroke. But Tracy Patton and Tricia Newenham were among hundreds of phenylpropanolamine consumers who suffered attacks after a landmark study - sponsored by the drug industry - in 1999 that the use of phenylpropanolamine was associated with an increased risk of that deadliest form of stroke.

Recently obtained internal company documents show that rather than alerting the public during cold season, the drug industry launched a yearlong campaign to keep the results quiet and stall government regulation. By the time the phenylpropanolamine was removed from over-the-counter cold medicine, 13 months and hundreds of strokes later, the companies had reformulated their brand names with little interruption in sales and cash flow.

The market for phenylpropanolamine has been estimated at $500 million to $1 billion annually. In the interim, Americans continued to purchase phenylpropanolamine products off the shelf and assume they were safe.

"It never even dawned on us," said Tim A. Bybee, Tricia Newenham's stepfather, speaking of the Triaminic cold syrup Tricia took shortly before her stroke. "It was in the store. Everyone uses it."

The pharmaceutical industry consistently challenged any notion that phenylpropanolamine could be dangerous and dismissed evidence to the contrary. They also show that the manufacturers assured the public that phenylpropanolamine was safe even as some Food and Drug Administration scientists and industry officials were raising concerns. As early as 1982, an Food and Drug Administration report warned that phenylpropanolamine had "the ability to cause cardiovascular effects, cerebral hemorrhage and cardiac arrhythmias."

Two years later, a memo from the medical services department at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, which made the phenylpropanolamine products Triaminic and Tavist-D, referred to phenylpropanolamine as "an agent known to cause hypertension and stroke," yet the pharmaceutical industry accelerated their marketing of phenylpropanolamine, winning Food and Drug Administration approval to sell prescription phenylpropanolamine products on an over-the-counter basis and even introducing flavorful new formulas for young children.

Upon learning that the 1999 study had found a stroke link, the pharmaceutical industry opened a relentless assault on its methodology and on the integrity of the Yale University researchers who conducted it. The pharmaceutical industry did so despite having paid for the five year, $5 million study themselves, approving its protocol and hand picking investigators who had previously expressed skepticism about a link between phenylpropanolamine and cerebral hemorrhage.

The pharmaceutical industry hoped to survive the 2000 cold season without pulling phenylpropanolamine products. Early in November 2000 two weeks after an Food and Drug Administration advisory panel concluded that phenylpropanolamine could be hazardous, an official with Bayer, which made Alka-Seltzer Plus with phenylpropanolamine, drafted a proposed "phenylpropanolamine crisis action plan."

Its stated objectives: "Delay mandatory implementation of Food and Drug Administration recommendation. Blunt PR impact by highlighting as questionable study conclusions as they pertain to cough/cold products."


indigestion, heartburn and chronically upset stomachs

Chronically upset stomachs (due to toxic chemical stew found in highly processed food) have created a whole new set of drugs. Gastric acid blocker drugs will allow you to eat any highly processed mixture of trans fat, high fructose corn syrup and chemicals, like the artificial butter flavoring, diacetyl and melamine.

Trans fats are created when vegetable oils undergo a chemical process known as hydrogenation. The classical example of a hydrogenation is the addition of hydrogen on unsaturated bonds between carbon atoms, converting alkenes to alkanes. Numerous applications are found in the pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries. All reactions between organic compounds and hydrogen require metal catalysts. With rare exception, no reaction below 480 °C occurs between hydrogen and organic compounds in the absence of metal catalysts.

"Trans fats, a manufactured byproduct of the partial hydrogenation of any vegetable oil, sabotage cell membranes, inhibiting cells from performing their intended functions. Cells all over the body cannot perform the exquisite and delicate work they were designed to do once partially hydrogenated oil is absorbed." - Judith Shaw

"So many different compounds can be made during partial hydrogenation that they stagger the imagination. Scientists have barely scratched the surface of studying changes induced in fats and oils by partial hydrogenation." - Udo Erasmus

Beginning January 1, 2006 food makers must disclose levels of trans fats on nutritional labels. Trans fats are worse for the heart than dairy products, such as butter and cream, as they line arterial walls and are far harder for the human body to break down. The health department of the city of New York has banned the use of trans fats in ALL food products! Trans fats are one atom away from plastic.)

The makers of Splenda claim Splenda is natural, made from sugar. The makers of Splenda fail to tell you that the chemical process that creates Splenda turns sugar into sucralose. The sucralose molecule is an organochloride. Some organochlorides are known to cause adverse health effects in extremely small concentrations. Many organochlorides have significant biological activities. Many powerful and effective insecticides are organochlorides. Common examples include DDT, 2,4-D, dicofol, heptachlor, endosulfan, chlordane, mirex, and pentachlorophenol.Those who drink at least one soda, diet or not, a day have a 31% greater risk of becoming obese; 25% higher risk of developing high blood triglycerides or high blood sugar; 32% greater risk of having low levels of good cholesterol and a increased risk of high blood pressure.

YOUR STOMACH UPSET? TRY THESE NEW MIRACLE DRUGS!

You can eat ANYTHING now! Sawdust, tran fats, diacetyl, preservatives, chemicals, ANYTHING!!!

Oops, we forgot to disclose that these may also cause irritable bowel syndrome, renal failure, liver failure and reduce bone density.

The Food and Drug Administration has reports of diarrhea so severe, called ischemic colitis, in users of the irritable-bowel treatment Zelnonn that it caused such complications as low blood pressure and fainting. The Food and Drug Administration has received 20 reports of ischemic colitis, since Zelnonn went on sale in 2002, fourteen patients were hospitalized, four died. The Food and Drug Administration advised patients who experience new or worsened abdominal pain or blood in their stools to stop taking the drug and call a doctor.

New research released in late 2005 shows that an individual that uses the popular prescription heartburn drugs - Prilosec, Prevacid, and Nexium - are more prone to getting a potentially dangerously severe diarrhea caused by clostridium difficile bacteria.

In December 2006 the Journal of the American Medical association reported that the use of Nexium, Prilosec, Prevacid, Protinix reduces calcium absorption in the small intestine resulting in increased risk of hip fractures. Long term users had 260% the average risk of hip fracture.


stimulants and antihistamines

According to a Food and Drug Administration report released in February 2006, 25 people - including 19 children - died within a 4 year period suddenly while using hyperactivity drugs or attention deficit disorder drugs which include Ritalin, Concerta, Methylin and Metadate. Additionally, 43 people taking the drugs for attention deficit disorder experienced serious cardiovascular events, including strokes, cardiac arrest and heart palpitations; 26 serious cardiovascular problems were reported in children, including two heart attacks and two strokes.

In 2006 about 3.3 million Americans 19 or younger and nearly 1.5 million age 20 and older were taking attention deficit disorder medicines. 3,100 people went to emergency rooms last year for attention deficit disorder medication overdoses.

A federal survey found that nearly 1 in 10 12-year-old American boys takes a stimulant. From 2001 to 2006 usage of hyperactivity drugs increased 60%. Children in America are prescribed hyperactivity drugs at 10 times the rate that children are prescribed hyperactivity drugs in Europe.

Up until 2001 it was illegal to market hyperactivity drugs.

In 2001 pharmaceutical manufactures began aggressively marketing hyperactivity drugs in magazine advertisments, claiming such advertising to be protected as free speech under the First Amendment. When it became apparent the George W. Bush Justice Department was not going to enforce existing law or challenge the pharmaceutical manufactures then aggressive marketing of hyperactivity drugs began in television advertisments.

(Hyperactivity drugs and antihistamines, especially pseudoephedrine are most definitely gateway drugs to methamphetamine use. Their chemical properties are similar to methamphetamine and they have similar psychotropic effect as methamphetamine. Amphetamines are first marketed as 'Benzedrine' in an over-the-counter inhaler to treat congestion. )


Maggie Preston said this about being prescribed Ritalin, "It was kind of like weirdly amazing. You get excited about monotonous work, honestly."

Evan Cirese said this about being prescribed stimulant medication,"School never really interested me. I'm more hands on. For a while in high school I felt like I was controlled by it, was dependent on it. Now I can't function properly without it."

After taking stimulant medication for 6 years Robert Wall said this about medicating children, "It seems everyone is diagnosed attention deficit disorder. The parenting decision these days is " Don't teach them, just sit them down and give them a crack pipe and an Xbox"."

"Stimulants have been used since 1937 to treat what we now call attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I'm a psychiatrist who has attention deficit disorder. I have been treating attention deficit disorder in children and adults for the last 25 years and have written books on the subject. I am also the father of two children who take stimulant medication for attention deficit disorder. People with attention deficit disorder (as well as those with dyslexia, depression, bipolar disorder or anxiety disorders) usually have extraordinary talents that get buried under troubles and disappointments. It's important that people with attention deficit disorder get help learning to organize themselves and that they get plenty of positive human contact. (They usually get plenty of criticism.) Getting enough sleep, eating right and getting lots of physical exercise help with attention deficit disorder (and everything else)." - Edward M. Hallowell, psychiatrist

Psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell suggests help learning organizational skills, positive human contact, enough sleep, eating right and lots of physical excercise to overcome attention deficit disorder. Of course it is easier to just pop a pill!


methamphetamine, crystal meth, tina, krank, tweak, ice

Methamphetamine creates euphoria and excitement by acting directly on the brain's reward mechanisms, thus making it highly addictive. Methamphetamine rapidly enters the brain and causes a cascading release of norepinephrine and dopamine (and to a lesser extent, serotonin). Users may become obsessed or perform repetitive tasks such as cleaning, hand-washing or assembling and disassembling objects.

Methamphetamine was first synthesized from ephedrine in Japan in 1893 by chemist Nagayoshi Nagai.

Adolf Hitler received daily injections of methamphetamine. So did John F. Kennedy.

Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht distributed methamphetamine tablets to German fighting troops throughout World War II. The Japanese used methamphetamine to help the teen age suicide bombers (kamikaze) to complete their airplane flights to their intended American warship targets.

Amphetamines are "power drugs" that reduce fatigue, heighten aggression, and diminish human warmth and empathy. Long-term use of amphetamines often exacerbates depression. When used chronically amphetamines induce stereotyped thought and behavior rather than creativity.

During World War II massive amounts of methamphetamines were produced by both the Allies and Axis powers. After World War II there were huge stockpiles of methamphetamines left in many countries, especially in Japan and throughout northern Europe. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a huge surge in methamphetamine abuse was noted in Scandinavia and Japan following the dumping of these methamphetamine stocks onto the civilian market.

In 1967 there was 31 million prescriptions in America for amphetamines. Methamphetamine is still used by the American military to keep pilots and soldiers alert!

Chronic and/or extensively-continuous use can lead to amphetamine psychosis, which causes delusions and paranoia.

The unintended consequences of the extensive use of methamphetamine by the militaries of Japan, Germany and America and the ease of access directly after World War II has led to an epidemic of methamphetamines use.

In 1994, 263 meth labs were seized in America.

In 2000, 1,800 meth labs were seized by Drug Enforcement Agency, 4,600 meth labs were seized by local police in America.

In March 2007 a raid in Mexico yielded $205 million in cash, mostly $100 dollar bills, weighing 4,500 pounds earned selling methamphetamines.


ecstacy or mdma, methylenedioxymethamphetamine

MDMA was legal in America until May 31, 1985.

For those that find ecstacy, MDMA, a stimulating drug it might interest them to know that MDMA was used in clandestine research during the 1950s. The Central Intelligence Agency's Project MKULTRA was investigating new techniques of brainwashing, espionage and mind control.

Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was one of the test subjects. MDMA, code-named EA-1475, was tested at the US Army's Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. The Central Intelligence Agency hoped MDMA could be used as a chemical warfare agent designed to sow confusion, anxiety and fear in the unwilling recipient.

"A lot of the Ecstasy we see in Las Vegas comes from Israeli dealers." - Sergeant Blake Quackenbush, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police

"Oded Tuito was known as the world's largest trafficker of MDMA." - DEA administrator Karen Tandy before the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee

Oded Tuito imported more than 7 million "Ecstacy" pills into America before being arrested.

From 1994 to 2004 Israeli drug traffickers dominated the trans-Atlantic lines of shipment of MDMA.

Oded Tuito* died mysteriously while incarcerated in a New York jail.


erectile dysfunction

Can't get it up! Try Viagra or Cialis! But please if you have high blood pressure or heart disease do not use these drugs as they may cause blindness! If things look blue - watch out!

Men without high blood pressure or heart disease exercise regularly and have no problem 'getting it up'! Women past menopause and not on hormone thearpy have no sexual desire thus no need for erections!

The FDA warned consumers that True Man and Energy Max, "dietary supplements" marketed as treatments for erectile dysfunction, contained ingredients that could lower blood pressure to dangerous levels in some users.


dry skin or eczema

Have eczema? The solution lies in Elidel and Protopic, unless you prefer not to contract skin or lymphoma cancer!

weight loss pills

The Federal Trade Commission fined the makers of Xenadrine EFX, One-A-Day WeightSmart, CortiSlim and TrimSpa $25 million in January 2007 for making false advertising claims which included rapid weight loss, cancer prevention, reduction in risk of osteoporosis and Alzheimers.

aprotinin

Scheduled for surgery? Hopefully your doctor will give you a generic drug to keep you from bleeding to death. Aprotinin, also called Trasylola, a heavily marketed still under patent Bayer drug, causes kidney failure sending an estimated 10,000 people a year to kidney dialysis centers. Does Bayer have a stake in the dialysis centers? Aprotinin also increases the risk of heart failure by 109% and stroke by 181%.

recombinant activated factor VII

Recombinant Activated Factor VII is an experimental drug used on severely wounded soldiers in Iraq. It costs six thousand per dose. Side effects include blood clots leading to strokes, heart attacks and pulmonary embolisms.

"It's a completely irresponsible and inappropriate use of a very, very dangerous drug." - Jawed Fareed director of homostasis and thrombosis research at Loyola University Chicago and a specialist in blood clotting and blood thinning medications.


carmustine, cisplatin, cytarabine and other chemotherapy drugs

Cancer chemotherapy impairs the brain, killing crucial neural cells and causing key parts of the organ to shrink, according to two studies released in November 2006. The new findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that the mental fuzziness, memory loss and cognitive impairment often reported by cancer patients but often dismissed by oncologists - is a serious problem. Key areas of the brain including the prefrontal, parahippocampus and cingulate gyri shrink during chemotherapy. The damage continues for several months after chemotherapy is stopped.

"Those of us on the front lines have known this for a long time, now we have some neuropathological evidence that what we are seeing involves an anatomic change," said Dr. Stewart Fleishman*, director of cancer supportive services at Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.


vytorin and zetia

In 2007 Merck and Schering-Plough sold $5.2 billion of the anti-cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia. Vytorin, which combines the unique cholesterol drug Zetia with the traditional statin drug simvastatin, was found to be no better than simvastatin alone for reducing plaque buildup in the carotid arteries.

In fact, patients taking Vytorin actually had slightly more plaque buildup during the trial than those taking simvastatin alone. Merck and Schering-Plough completed the ENHANCE study in 2005 but failed to announce the results.

"Today's announcement that the ENHANCE study failed to find any positive benefit from the addition of Zetia to a common, inexpensive, generic therapy raised concerns that attempts were made to mask the minimal value of this new drug."- Representative John Dingell, Committee on Energy and Commerce chairman 1/15/08

"In light of today's results, which were released nearly two years after the ENHANCE trial ended, it is easy to conclude that Merck and Schering-Plough intentionally sought to delay the release of this data." -Representative Bart Stupak, chairs the oversight subcommittee


antibiotics

The widely used antibiotic erythromycin, prescribed for bacterial infections from strep throat to syphilis, has been on the market for 50 years and has long been considered safe. Published in New England Journal of Medicine in September of 2004 a new study systematically documented the dramatic increase of cardiac arrest associated with erythromycin use.

"This study shows the need for continuing research on the safety of older medicines, including how they interact with newer drugs." - researcher Wayne A. Ray, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

"Nobody realized the magnitude of the problem before." - Dr. Muhamed Sanc, cardiologist and director of the electro cardiology laboratory at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark.

ketek

The Food and Drug Administration approved Ketek in 2004 to treat severe infections. The Food and Drug Administration submitted clinical trial data that key officials knew to be tainted by scientific fraud including fictitious patients. Several users of Ketek experienced liver failure.

calcium suppliments and hormone therapy

A massive federal study, the $18-million Women's Health Initiative published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that calcium supplements made no significant difference in woman's bone density and did not significantly reduce bone fractures.

An earlier Women's Health Initiative study showed hormone treatment after menopause conferred more risks than benefits.

In January 2007 a state court jury in Philadelphia found Wyeth "malicious, wanton ,willful or oppressive" in the manufacturing, marketing and sales of Prempro menopause pill. Mary Daniel, after using the hormone therapy pill, contracted breast cancer. Around 5000 lawsuits wait to be heard over the hormone therapies Prempro and Premarin.

breast implants

In February 2008 the United States Supreme Court ruled that any medical device maker whose medical device has been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration may not be sued even if the device fails to perform as advertised.

"I have enlarged the breasts of thousands of women with silicone implants since they were first introduced in the 1960s.

I even wrote articles in favor of silicone.

Then Paula S. came to see me in 1992. At age 32, she had at least three breast surgeries, and each time her breasts became rock-hard and painful. She could not lie on her stomach. We replaced the silicone with smooth saline implants. Within a short time these too became hard, as did the next set. Paula insisted on having her implants removed. She would not heed my warnings about deformity and scarring, which we had all been told inevitably follows removal without replacement. To my surprise, she looked terrific - normal, albeit smaller - and she felt better.

Paula's problem turned out to be common: Most breasts with silicone gel implants become hard with time. It's called capsular contracture. All foreign objects in the body get encapsulated - just as the tissue around a splinter gets hard - until the foreign body is removed. Women with capsular contracture often end up with disfigured breasts and pain.

Recently I saw Helen S., 71, who had implants 23 years ago. Her breasts also had hardened and become painful. In addition, an MRI showed rupture of the implants and calcification of the surrounding scar tissue. When I removed the implants, the cavity was filled with gooey, liquid silicone that had ruptured; there was virtualy no implant wall left.

In the last 14 years, I have removed implants from almost 1,000 women.

I have found roughly 50% of their implants have ruptured within 10 years, and more than 70% have ruptured within 15 years.

We are still not sure of all the places where the micro-droplets of silicone end up, though I have found it in lymph nodes.

Despite these known hazards, the Food and Drug Administration, under pressure from implant manufacturers, plastic surgeons and patients, is allowing as of Januray 2007, a new generation of silicone implants in women age 22 and over. The new generations of implants, we are assured, are less likely to rupture.

This claim has been made for every previous generation of breast implant.

To monitor women's health, the Food and Drug Administration will require women who receive implants to have regular MRls and has recommended that the implants be replaced every 10 years.

It is a pity that women will become the experimental lab rats for these implants.

They, not the manufacturers, will have to pay for the MRIs and replacements as recommended.

Most plastic surgeons vehemently deny any connection between health complaints and leaking silicone implants.

I have seen a disturbing number of patients with symptoms, including fatigue, short-term memory loss, joint and muscle pains, skin rashes, disturbed sleep patterns, depression and hair loss, that clear up when implants are removed.

Last year, I completed a review of the last 500 gel implant removals I performed, and found that more than half the women had similar symptoms, ranging from mild to debilitating.

According to the manufacturers' own literature, one in four women has additional surgery within the first year. Many women have multiple surgeries.

"Women deciding to have these implants need to be prepared to have additional surgery," cautioned Dr. Daniel Schultz, head of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the FDA.

Our government's policy has become, "Approve now, test later."

At current implantation rates, these devices will be in the bodies of 5% of American women within a decade.

As I now see it, grossly outsized artificial breasts are a deformity that flouts medical standards and even the plastic surgeons society's own definition of "cosmetic" - all too often encouraged by the media, which celebrates these water balloons for self-esteem. I no longer perform cosmetic breast augmentation." - Edward Melmed, MD

An interesting side note is that women seeking breast implants seem to have a higher-than-average risk of underlying psychological problems. Women with breast implants are three times more likely to kill themselves than other women according to the British Medical Journal.

"The slippery slope is if you go to a surgeon to solve self-esteem problems they will not be fixed." - Psychiatrist Mark I. Levy, MD, University of California in San Francisco

the food and drug administration, national institute of health, clinical trials, experiments and guinea pigs

"If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." – Thomas Jefferson

The Food and Drug Administration announced new guidelines as of January 2006 which enable researchers to test experimental drugs earlier on human volunteers to ‘see' how their bodies react. Such testing would replace some of the early experiments now required to be carried out on animals.

America is returning to the era before 1965 when it became mandatory for patients to sign a written notice of the potential benefits and risks of participating in a clinical trial or other experiment. Only after 1965 did most institutions implement ethics boards to control and restrain human experimentation.

In the early 1900s, physicians in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio injected dozens of orphans with syphilis and tuberculosis in experiments.

In the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, which ran from 1932 to 1972 and in which doctors in the U.S. Public Health Service studying syphilis denied treatment to 399 poor black sharecroppers so they could document the disease's progression. Any more wonder why black Americans have a hard time trusting authority?

From the mid 1940s to the mid 1970s more than 4000 radiological experiments were conducted upon tens of thousands of deceived Americans. Most of these Americans were not told the specifics of the experiments being conducted on them.

I remember as a child one of the things that convinced me that Nazis were horrible was that they conducted medical experiments on Jews.

Is America any better?


Although the Food and Drug Administration allows pharmaceutical companies to legally experiment on people to see what the effect of a chemical will have on them the Food and Drug Administration refuses to allow people to experiment on themselves. Pharmaceuticals not approved by the Food and Drug Administration can not be used by any individual residing within Food and Drug Administration jurisdiction.

Terminally ill individuals that request unapproved pharmaceuticals - pharmaceuticals still undergoing clinical trial, pharmaceuticals banned as too dangerous and experimental pharmaceuticals - are told that the risks involved are unacceptable.

The risks to who?

If you are going to die anyway how is it a risk to experiment with unapproved pharmaceuticals?

Actually it is not the risk to you that is of concern but the risk of the legal exposure of the pharmaceutical manufacture if the experimental drugs kill you quicker than the terminal condition does.

Of course, no regime of pharmaceutical (chemical) treatment might ever by necessary if the chemical manufactures had not polluted the environment with toxins that cause cancer. (But what red blooded American capitalist, in this case chemical/pharmaceuticals manufactures, would not want to have created such a huge profit center.)

The Food and Drug Administration issued a legal opinion in January 2006 that Food and Drug Administration approved labels on drugs give the pharmaceutical industry broad immunity from lawsuits.

If the advertised drugs creates any of the ‘disclosed' conditions - lymphoma, heart attack, severe diarrhea, stroke, etcetera - then the pharmaceutical industry is not liable. If a warning occurs on the label you can expect a percentage of the population to contract the disease through use of the drug.

If you happen to be the one that contracts a disclosed condition too bad! You were warned!

"Americans have been left in the dark about the contingent nature of the approval of drugs. Patients are paying to be human guinea pigs in real world trials that have no end." - Represenative Edward J. Markey

"To a real degree, the people who get a drug in the first few years after its approval are being experimented on." - Dr. Brian L. Strom, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania


Dr. Lester M. Crawford, appointed by George W. Bush as the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, pleaded guilty to conflict of interest and false reporting of ownership of stock in October 2006.
(Dr. Lester M. Crawford made regulatory decisions affecting companies he held stock in.)

"What are the possible consequences of financial bias in clinical research and practice guidelines? One is that physicians may be more likely to prescribe a drug for a condition that should first be treated with non-pharmacologic remedies. 'Another is that prescribing the newest, research touted drug may 'expose patients to side effects not fully recognized in the drug's clinical trials. Still another is that new drugs are the most expensive on the market; even though they may be no more effective than cheaper, generic substitutes." - Jerome P. Kassirer

"In recent years, the Food and Drug Administration has been run in a manner that maximizes profits to drug companies at the expense of protecting the public. The drug companies frequently submit research that they commissioned, while the Food and Drug Administration rubber-stamps the approvals to get the drugs out to the public as quickly as possible." - Jeff Graber


Clinical trials of new drugs are no longer required to be tested on animals first. Clinical trials of new drugs now are all done for profit. A clinical trial operator is hired to test the new drugs on uninformed individuals. As long as the operator of the clinical trial sticks with approved procedure they are exonerated from any harm they have done. The uninformed, or those in financial difficulties, are enlisted for cash to participate in testing of the new drugs on humans.

In a clinical trial in Britain in 2006 six men were given a experimental drug at ten minute intervals. Nino Abdlehady was given $3500 to participate in an experiment as a human guinea pig in testingTGN1412, an antibody manufactured by fusing mouse and human cells. Nino Abdlehady was administered one five hundredth of what would be a standard dose. The drug "ripped through" Nino Abdlehady body "like wildfire". Nino Abdlehady's head swelled to twice its normal size. Nino Abdlehady was unconscious for 8 days.

Nino Abdlehady stated that by the time he was administered the drug the first volunteers where already experiencing severe reactions. The man next to him, who had been injected minutes before him complained of head pain "like rockets going off". Even though at this time it must have been apparent to researchers that the drug was causing adverse effects they went ahead and gave it to Nino Abdlehady.

A deal is a deal and the researchers would not be paid unless they followed strict procedure.

The six human guinea pigs screamed in pain, ripped their clothes off, began convulsing and then lost consciousness. All the human guinea pigs were hospitalized with some suffering major organ failure. The value of their lives - $3500. For thirty five hundred dollars these human guinea pigs nearly lost their lives!

Obviously they were not very well informed about drug testing experiments on humans!

Over the last 25 years, clinical research has been largely privatized. Three-quarters of the clinical studies published in the three most respected medical journals, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Lancet, are now commercially funded.

As a result, our medical knowledge grows not in the direction that best improves our health but toward corporate profits, the way that plants grow toward sunlight.

Before 1980, most medical studies were publicly funded, and most academic researchers scorned industry support.

Now, however, the vast majority of clinical trials are commercially funded, and with the financial stakes so high, there is mounting evidence of individual scientists and corporations manipulating their findings. (Perhaps that is why a Harris poll taken in early 2006 revealed that only 9% of Americans feel the pharmaceutical industry is trustworthy.)

It is vital to protect the integrity of our medical knowledge. The journals, and the peer reviewers they rely on, are in the untenable position of having to trust that corporate sponsors have accurately and completely reported their findings.

At present, journal editors and peer reviewers typically are not allowed unrestricted access to the data from commercially sponsored research.

Amazingly, many drug company funded researchers who write the articles are also not allowed access to all of the data the company has collected.

The evidence shows that it is time for the journals to change their policies from trust to "trust, but verify."

The journals should introduce a new standard requiring an independent audit of the accuracy and completeness of research reports before they are sent out for peer review. These scientific auditors should be statisticians and medical experts who are completely free of conflicts of interest and are given unfettered access to the data.

"Americans waste billions each year on drugs of dubious value.

Until we find a way to fund quality controls on published research, the cost of our medical care will continue to soar and our health will suffer."

- John Abramson, MD clinical instructor Harvard Medical School


"Pfizer, Merck and Glaxo-SmithKline are making a mockery of efforts to create transparency in clinical trials. They are giving nonsense details written in a way to hide what they are doing." -Dr. Jeffrey M. Drazen, Editor in Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, May 2005. (In 2005 18 US Senators and 62 US Represenatives owned stock in Pfizer.)

"People think the Food and Drug Administration is protecting them. It is not. What the Food and Drug Administration is doing and what the public thinks it is doing are as different as night and day." - Dr Herbert Ley, Food and Drug Administration commissioner, in testimony before a United States Senate hearing

In a survey of Food and Drug Administration scientists in 2006 - 39% said the agency was not acting effectively to protect public health, 15% said they had been asked to exclude or alter conclusions in agency documents and 37% said that administrators were committed to approving products for sale before assuring product safety.

A survey, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006, sent to 893 clinical trial review board members asked them if they had corporate financial ties which included funding of research, consulting, receiving royalties, owning stock or sitting on a corporate board. Of 574 responses 36% said they had financial ties.


If the 319 who did not respond had financial ties to a corporation but did not fill out the survey (I am surprised anyone would admit they did) plus the 206 who admitted they did then that would bring the percentage to 58% - nearly two thirds of the clinical trial review board members.

Dr. P. Trey Sunderland III, a researcher at the National Institute of Health, received more than $285 thousand for providing samples of spinal fluid drawn from National Institute of Health patients to Pfizer Inc. Dr. P. Trey Sunderland III apeared before a congressional hearing put refused to testify basing his refusal on the 5th Amendent of the Constitution.

If you trust your doctor in prescribing the right drugs for you, you might like to know that the pharmaceutical industry has started a new program to help bypass the caps on the price of drugs sold in California related to workmen's compensation claims. If these drugs are bought through a prescription then the price controls kick in but if they are sold directly to the individual by the doctor then the price controls do not apply. A doctor who prescribes a 90 tablet bottle of 800 milligram ibuprofen can clear a profit of $65.50 on every bottle sold according to DispenseXpress which buys drugs in quantities and repackages them for sale through doctors.

One question: If a doctor has a choice between two medications to prescribe, has the opportunity to make a few bucks by prescribing one and nothing by prescribing the other, which drug is he likely to prescribe?


vaccines

After Merck won approval for Gardasil in June 2006 Merck funneled money through Women in Government in a bid to change state laws by making it mandatory for 11 to 12 year old girls to be vaccinated with Merck's new cervical cancer vaccine. Merck stands to make a fortune off Gardasil as Merck is charging $360 for the three shot regime. Approximately 2 million American girls would need to be vaccinated yearly, Merck would gross $720 million a year if the Gardasil vaccine became mandatory. Gardasil will not block infection with all of the human papilloma virus types that can cause cervical cancer. According to the American Cancer Society 3,700 American women died of cervical cancer in 2002 which is about 3 out of 100,000. (In 2005 11 US Senators and 30 US Represenatives owned stock in Merck.)

In Febuary 2007, the Food and Drug Administration notified health care providers that infants have been contracting a serious bowell condition after being given a Merck vaccine to protect against rotavirus.


health care

Expenditures for hospital care increased 90% from $462 billion in 1997 to $873 billion in 2007.

"For-profit insures have had decades to show us a workable system and they have failed. Strong evidence that a taxpayer-funded system is the best available is the fact that the president, all members of Congress and all state executives and legislators have this exact system for themselves and their families and show absolutely no signs of giving it up. Let's end the hypocrisy of having people with perpetual, uncancelable, taxpayer-funded health insurance telling us that private, for-profit insurers are the answer." - Stacy Bermingham

"The healthcare debate is about whether we see health related only to the body or to our whole being - body, mind and soul. Are Americans taking responsibility for their health, preventing disease through conscious living and proper diet and exercise, or has abuse of the physical body and the quick fix by the medical establishment become the norm? The healthcare debate is really about what creates a healthy life. It leads us to ask if we can be truly healthy and free of disease if we are living a life of stress, indifference and selfishness. It also raises the issue of whether we can be healthy individuals in a polluted, crime-ridden and fearful society."- Ron Lowe


"The American medical system is headed for multiple failures.

The spiraling cost of healthcare is well known: $7,100 per person this year, projected to increase to $12,000 in 2015 and compounding at more than double the rate of inflation. Medical care gobbles up one-sixth of the GDP.

These enormous expenditures may be buying Americans the best amenities in medical care - but not the best health.

Canada spends only 60% as much per person on healthcare as America. Since 1980, the longevity of all Canadians has improved more rapidly than that of white Americans, who typically have the best health care.

Britain spends only 40% as much as we do on healthcare.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, middle-class insured Americans "are much less healthy than their English counterparts".

Americans spend twice as much per person on healthcare as the other 21 wealthiest countries and yet data from the World Health Organization show that we live the shortest amount of time in good health.

America is wasting more than $650 billion a year on unnecessary and often harmful care.

American and international studies show that the more a healthcare system relies on primary care, the better the outcomes and the lower the cost. American medicine is heavy on specialists and getting heavier. In just the last eight years, the number of graduates of American medical schools choosing careers in family practice and adult primary care has plummeted by more than half.

Our healthcare system is designed to maximize profits.

Our federal government now relies entirely on market based, pro-business solutions to all social problems.


No politician wants to be tarred with the charge of promoting "socialized medicine."

Even our nonprofit medical instiutions shape the care they offer based on their own bottom lines instead of the health needs of the communities they serve.

The Food and Drug Administration is much better at protecting the interests of the drug and medical-device industries than those of patients."
- John Abramson, clinical instructor, Harvard Medical School, author of Overdosed America

"Perhaps a third of medical spending is now devoted to services that don't appear to improve health or the quality of care - and may make things worse." - professor Elliott Fisher, Dartmouth Medical School

"Several years ago, the California Nurses Association conducted a study that demonstrated that a single-payer healthcare system, just by cutting administrative and insurance costs, could provide decent, affordable healthcare to everyone. Instead of pursuing this solution, politicians allow insurance companies to wallow in wealth. Another way to cut health-care costs is to change the way medicine is practiced. Most practitioners write expensive prescriptions rather than address the real cause of most illness: stress and unhealthy life-style choices, not to mention poverty and lack of health care. Sometimes the cheapest treatment (such as exercise, diet and relaxation) is the most effective one." - Ellen Winer RN

"Never sacrifice your health by working late at night or scrimping on sleep, excercise, or healthy eating." - Dr. Michael Roizen

"Many national healthcare plans provide universal insurance at a lower per-capita cost than the American system with better results. Given the renewed debate about health coverage in America</